


The Twi'lek Girl

by rey_sith_stance



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Based on Trevorrow's Screenplay for IX, Bonodan, Dominant Kylo Ren, Duel of the Fates Un-filmed Screenplay, F/M, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Porn with Feelings, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Reylo offscreen but still present, Ryloth | Twi'lek, Sex, Smut, Trevorrow Script, lekku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:48:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26242180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rey_sith_stance/pseuds/rey_sith_stance
Summary: Not far from Hux, lounging on a set of low couches, were five men in dark, mud-stained armor.  All but one of them had taken off their helmets and piled them on their crystal table like a stack of ebony skulls.  They were all human males, as far as Sambri could tell—though the milk-white skin on one of them marked him as albino—and they were all drinking and laughing the way men do before getting up to mayhem and destruction.  Their very appearance—as if they’d come from a battlefield--was an affront to the more dignified crowd.  But that wasn’t what made Sambri halt in her tracks.  It was the man in the middle: the one still wearing his mask.He was tall and preternaturally still—and was clearly the source of her strange, dark feeling.Before Rey, a younger Kylo Ren had to find satisfaction somehow.
Relationships: Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Original Female Character(s), Kylo Ren/Rey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	The Twi'lek Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Rey's important in this one but she's off-screen.

The Twi’lek Girl

She always knows when his ship breaks atmosphere. It’s a feeling she gets. She doesn’t understand it. Truthfully, she doesn’t want too. Feeling anything these days is dangerous.

Case in point: the First Order transport ships roaring in over the night market, flattening the waters of the sunset bay. They dock in the spire-like arrays above the quayside on those sleek landing strips that so resemble lily pads. They’re frightening—the ships, not the pads—and his is the most frightening of all.

A TIE fighter. It’s always a split second behind the others even though, from what she’s heard, it’s what commanders fly. Its appearance—knifing across the bay, the colored lanterns of the market blurring in streaks across its belly—means it’s time for Sambri to bundle her daughter off to Mamo’s, dab some perfume on her wrists, and wait by the door.

Whatever else he is, he’s punctual.

“Them again?” Mamo asks as Sambri moves back from the window and draws the muslin curtain across the sky. The house sits high on hill above the bay, connected to the night market by several tiers of creaking boardwalks. It’s a fine house, if in disrepair, and Sambri is grateful for its quiet stones. Sometimes she pretends that it’s really hers. That she belongs here. That everything is fine. But you don’t have to have the _feeling_ she gets to recognize the sound of First Order engines. They keep coming every few months—with and without _him_ —to snatch up children who never return. 

“Can you take her to the cottage, Mamo?” she asks. She lays a pale blue hand on her mother’s _lekku_. The old woman nods and shuffles towards Kalindra’s room and Sambri hears her gently rouse the little girl from her nap. “Let’s go play at Mamo’s house!” she says. “Let’s listen for the wings of the Can-cell!”

“They’re not Can-cell,” the little girl says sleepily. “They’re _dragonflies_ on Bonadan.”

“We called them Can-cell on Ryloth,” Mamo says. “They were a lot bigger. Maybe we’ll see them again someday.”

“But you _can’t_ see them, Moma!” Kali says, artless. Moma was blind before Kali was born. 

The old woman just laughs. “That’s true, isn’t? Well. You’ll just have to see them for me.”

“Maybe…” Their voices fade. A door opens and shuts at the back of the house. It takes half an hour for a round trip to the cottage, winding down the plank walkways to the forested cove. They’ll spend a few hours there—and the longest _he’s_ ever spent with her is three--so there’s no chance they’ll see him, or he them. If they should come back early… But Sambri shuts that thought away. She’s doing what she must to keep Moma and Kali safe.

She lights a votive candle under a glass teapot, reheating the tea she’s kept simmering all day. It’s winter here on the sunset planet and greyish purple storms ebb and flow across the bay. The air seeping through the cracks and windows of the house smells of waterlogged boards and distant spices. A lonely electroharp weeps endlessly up from dock—and has done since the first vague flare of morning.

 _Never really morning, never really night._ Sambri opens her bedroom, then straightens the sheets on the bed. Rain rattles in the branches of the tree outside her window. Another storm on the way in. Sprinkles now. Torrents later.

His knock comes sooner than she expects it. A sharp blow—then the front door bangs inward. She’s barely risen off the chair she keeps in the hallway (the simple painted thing Kali favors for changing her perpetually wet shoes) before his figure emerges from the damp streets in a swirl of cloak and lurking ground fog. His white face rises like a spirit before her and she stumbles back, knowing she’s betrayed her fear. If he’s a ghost, he’s an angry one, his dark eyes burning with hellfire—but the impression only lasts a moment. When he steps inside, the door slamming behind him, she can hear the hot raggedness of his breath. He becomes human then—or as close as he gets. A tall young man in dark clothes, face flushed, hair wild. 

Sambri sinks to her knees before him, head bowed, her heart and _lekku_ trembling in time. The feeling of him rages around and through her. He’s furious about something. Crazed with it. It rises from him the way the moisture rises from his cloak as the warmer air of the house thaws him. In her agitation, her senses in overdrive, Sambri thinks she can see each particle evaporate. She keeps her head down wondering if he’ll hurt her. He never has. But the possibility is there. She doesn’t know why his ship never leads the incursions on Bonadan. But she does know him. Everybody does, now.

“My lord of Ren,” she murmurs, softly. “Please be welcome in this house.”

###

She was working in a place called The Gris. Not the worst of Bonadan’s pleasure houses but not the best, either If she’d been pragmatic she would have been on stage somewhere, giving in to the oldest cliché in the galaxy. _A Twi’lek_ dancer! the Madame, Inka Plutt, kept insisting. _Do you know how much money_ I—we _could make?_ But Sambri only wanted honest work and, at the time, Inka needed a hostess more than a whore. Anyway, The Gris didn’t have performance spaces beyond those in its rent-by-the-hour rooms. Sambri served tables and made herself invisible, learning to coyly bat away the hands that groped for her _lekku_. Somehow, she’d remained mostly un-molested until the night Inka held a viewing for the First Order.

The party took place in a crumbling manse on the hillside in the more fashionable part of town. Sambri heard the girls say it had belonged to a Galactic Senator, but it had been deserted for a very long time. She smelled mold as she stepped between its vine-hidden doors. The light and music pouring out of it gave it artificial life. The colored lamps of sugar pink and burning crimson, the lush tapestries and rugs used to dress up the old furniture, the cheerful sparkle of votive flame gleaming on wine flutes and silverware were vivid against the backdrop of dignified decay.

Of course, Sambri didn’t have time to dwell. She was soon mingling to pour spatchka and Corellian wine. Men and women in severe dark uniforms stood in clusters, a few outworlders and droids breaking the monotony. She saw a leathery old Trandoshan, and the blue face of a Changrian—but it wasn’t until the viewing she felt true unease. She heard plenty about the Order’s dark associations, but she’d never actually _felt_ them until that night.

The viewing was held in a circular lounge at the very center of the house. Three hallways emptied into it, creating three viewing places for guests not influential enough to claim the floor. It was a grand space and much attention had gone to its rehabilitation: low-slung couches and crystal tables glittered sleekly beneath floating glow-lights. There was a strong smell of liquor about it even before Sambri came with her pitcher, but it was neither the smell or the sly, anticipatory laughter of the guests that made her hesitate at its threshold. All night she had felt a quiet _nagging_ , and as she entered, she recognized this room as its source. A presence filled the space, and her. Something sharp and dark and _alive_.

At first she couldn’t locate it. There were many people, all talking, Madame Plutt most of all. Inka’s drilling, overfriendly laugh was enough to set anyone on edge. Red faced officers teased the scantily clad girls, barely restraining themselves from touching the wares. Men—and even a few women—placed whispered bets on which girl which high ranking officer would bed. There was some talk of an “Admiral Hux,” whether he’d “even go through with the charade,” and some snickering that he preferred boys to girls. After a slow look around, Sambri thought she identified him: a pale young man with slicked back ginger hair. He looked harmless, even a little scared, but when one of the girls approached him he snarled like dog. Instinctively, Sambri retreated from him—but then the crowd parted and she found herself transfixed by another scene. 

Not far from Hux, lounging on a set of low couches, were five men in dark, mud-stained armor. All but one of them had taken off their helmets and piled them on their crystal table like a stack of ebony skulls. They were all human males, as far as Sambri could tell—though the milk-white skin on one of them marked him as albino—and they were all drinking and laughing the way men do before getting up to mayhem and destruction. Their very appearance—as if they’d come from a battlefield--was an affront to the more dignified crowd. But that wasn’t what made Sambri halt in her tracks. It was the man in the middle: the one still wearing his mask. 

He was tall and preternaturally still—and was clearly the source of her strange, dark _feeling_.

“You girl!” She started. It was Hux. She moved towards him with a meek smile and downcast eyes. He gave off a feeling of his own—one that warned her towards subservience.

But Hux only looked at her long enough to wave a hand at the armored men.

“The Knights need more wine!” he shouted impatiently.

Sambri’s stomach dropped away. 

_The_ Knights? Oh gods. She’d heard of this. The armor. The mud. _The Knights of Ren._

And now she was walking over to them, the carpet sinking beneath the heels of her too-thin slippers.

Though the tall man with the silver and black mask didn’t move, she felt his attention shift to her. Her smile hardened (a mask of its own) as she moved around the bumbling crowd. The tall man was cleaner than the others. Immaculate, in fact. Almost out of place. She kept her eyes lowered as she bobbed a curtsy. When no one acknowledged her she began to fill their glasses, splashing wine in every vessel, just in case. Most of the glasses were in the men’s hands, and most of their hands were gesturing in the air. That was fine. Sambri was used to this. Deftly, she flitted about, pouring. The albino blinked at her with scarlet eyes but soon returned to listening to his companion: a statuesque man in greyish plate armor like the shell of some terrifying insect. The other two, as she moved to their side of the couch, were slender and young and obviously twins. They were enthralled by the big warrior’s stories—and drank in tandem when she’d filled their glasses.

That left the tall silent one—the source of her fluttering unease. She caught her reflection in the curve of his helmet, the dark metal polished to a painful sheen. For a moment, distracted, spying no glass, she thought perhaps she’d escaped having to serve him. But when she made a second curtsy by way of goodbye, she felt…something…brush the edges of her mind. Just the barest, feather-light touch, but her body stiffened as a voice buzzed through his modulator.

“Wine, girl. Fill it up.” He raised a chalice of golden synth metal from somewhere below the table. Sambri would have to squeeze between his lap and the table to pour. The mask turned her way as if challenge.

Sambri's neck was on fire now, her mind buzzing with faint, dark energy. She went to him, stepping between the (suddenly curious) twins and bent at the waist to fill the golden cup. It seemed to take forever—and the longer it did, the more she could feel his faceless gaze. The simple gown Madame Plutt had given her left little to the imagination. The big Knight, still bragging to the albino, trailed off a moment. The snickering breath of the dark-haired twins ghosted past her, warming her naked shoulder blades.

Through it all, the tall man remained silent—save the presence at the edge of her mind. By the time she straightened and backed away, a rivulet of sweat was trickling between her breasts. 

The party-goers swallowed her as she made her escape. Only when she’d gained the edge of the room, well out-of-sight behind a delegation of officers, did she gulp in the dozen breaths she’d been holding. An electroharp and a drum had started now and the girls were moving more prominently towards the center of the room. Strangely, they seemed to cluster near the Knights—and only then did Sambri wonder who this viewing was _for_. Could it be the First Order catered to these…assassins? She felt both repulsed and relieved at the idea. Horrifying rumors circled the Knights—but if they were worth a soiree, they’d already forgotten her. The girls approaching their table were the lushest and most beautiful The Gris had on offer, their tawdriness more exciting than the spiffed-up wares of higher houses. They’d suit the Knights—and be able to deal with them. Sambri had heard them with clients before. 

As she returned to her duties, a cymbal tinged and Madame Plutt made a high-pitched announcement.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” the madame said, “I am told the time has come to make your selections. If you will all be so good as to clear the floor so our honored…guests? can get a better view?”

 _Gods, it_ is _the Knights,_ Sambri thought as Inka’s girls posed before the table. Four pairs of eyes (and one pair that couldn’t be seen) perused their wispy finery. Amala, a lightly-tatooed Marilian would be the obvious favorite with her orange skin and liquid grace, but Tiri, the young Togruta girl, was a favorite at The Gris and had been the cause of more than one blaster duel. Filled with horrified fascination, Sambri inched a little closer to see how things would play out. The tall man in the mask was rising now, the room visibly shifting back from him. If one person had done it, it would have been a flinch. When a whole room did it, it was a wave. Sambri could have laughed at them, but then, she’d retreated just the same.

The tall masked man turned to Madame Plutt. “What do you want for the Twi’lek?” he said.

The murmur that followed this inquiry nearly distracted Sambri from the words themselves. She was still trying to untangle them when the crowd parted and all eyes turned to her.

“Oh, well…” Madame Plutt began, fluttering around the masked Knight like an anxious moth—but even before her mind fully registered what she was doing, Sambri had formed her response. As her numb hands dropped her metal pitcher—its waning portion of wine splashing the feet of nearby revelers—she gave the Knight her best snarl.

“I am not for _sale!_ ” she said.

Something seized her under her arms and lifted her on the tips of her toes. As the shocked gasps—and even laughter—of the guests filled her ears, she found herself pedaling backwards until her shoulders hit the wall. 

“Leave us,” the Knight drawled through his helmet, the modulator turning his voice to a toneless buzz. With horror Sambri realized that _he_ was holding her. It was him—touching without a touch.

The guests did not leave. They fled. 

Before the last of them had vanished, the tall Knight stepped towards her. 

She watched him come with tears in her eyes, confused and oddly, horribly ashamed. His invisible grip was firm and alien—but her heart pounded as if he were throttling her. Probably he would. Probably she was dead. All because she couldn’t keep quiet. Every choice she had made—leaving home, Bonadan, Plutt—resolved themselves into harbingers of ruin.

The tall Knight stopped a few inches from her, hand held before him in a curious, splayed gesture. He was even taller and more imposing up close, making her feel every inch she didn’t have on him. She waited for him to seize her throat, for the hard, cruel fingers in his leather gloves.

Then his hand dropped softly to his side. Her slippered feet dropped back to the carpet.

“What’s your name?” said the voice through the modulator. Not angry—but not-to-be-denied.

“Sambri,” she told him. “Sambri Teek.”

The helmet bobbed as the head within it nodded.

“Tell me, Sambri Teek: how long have you been able to sense the Force?”

Sambri blinked. For an instant she could have laughed. “The Force? What like…like a Jedi?”

“You don’t have to be a Jedi to sense the Force.”

“Well I’m _not_ a Jedi and I can’t…” Oh, but she could. She could _feel_ his presence all around her, breathing off him the way some men reeked of cologne. In it, she felt a faint acknowledgement—almost sympathy—for her plight.

“You interest me,” came his voice through the modulator. “I’ve never had a Twi’lek before.”

“I’m not--” she said weakly.

“Everyone is for sale. Follow me, Sambri Teek.”

The ghostliest pressure grazed her throat, reminding her of the cost of his disapproval. Mind racing, senses flickering with the unseen touch, she followed him down the nearest hall. It was dim, cutting back towards the front of the house, a window at the end, open to the rain. Thunder turned over, grumbling discontent as he opened the last door on the left.

Inside was a bedroom. Maybe he really _did_ know about the Force. Or maybe he’d simply scoped this place out before the party. The bed was low, spread with wine-colored sheets, no light but a blaze of votive candles. It looked elegant. Like the altar of a temple. An offering, courtesy of the First Order. Only no tight-coiffed officer would surrender her dignity here--just a faceless daughter of the working class. One more body thrown on the blaze that had grown to rage through the galaxy.

“I feel your anger,” he said behind her. He sounded different. When she turned he was removing the mask. Waves of black hair spilled to his shoulders and he set the mask down on the top of a chest of drawers. When he looked at her she suppressed a gasp. He was young. So young. No older than her.

 _Is he handsome, though?_ She couldn’t say. He was human. Not bad, but not conventionally beautiful. His features were long and irregular. She decided it was odd that he’d have to pay for girls.

“Your fear, too,” he said, gliding towards her. Somehow, with the mask off he seemed immensely more tall. “You’re thinking: ‘He must pay for girls because he’s cruel.” He held up a black gloved hand at her protest. “Maybe I am cruel,” he said. “But I’ve never paid for girls. Not yet.”

“I told you,” Sambri said, clenching her fists. “You can’t buy me—I’m no-one’s _property_. Even if you went to Plutt—”

“I’m not interested in buying you off that madame,” he said. “The transaction would be between you and me.”

“Transaction?”

“How would you like a house, Sambri Teek? A house, and servants, and more money than you can spend?”

That surprised her. For a moment she almost believed— But no. She’d believed such things before. 

“You _are_ cruel,” she said. “If you want to force me, go ahead. But don’t pretend it’s more than that. A house! To give to _me_? You don’t know me from a lothcat!”

Her outburst—unintentionally humorous--elicited not so much as a twitch. If anything, his expression grew more serious and, after a pause, his voice came both softer and more intense.

“I know you,” he said. “You’re angry and frightened and you’re out in this galaxy all alone. You try to be brave but you know your days are numbered, that it’s just a matter of time before Plutt—or someone else—traps you. You’ve tried so hard to be good and strong, but there’s no one you can trust who doesn’t depend on you. The people you depended on let you down. I know a thing or two about that.”

She flinched as he suddenly moved his hand, but he only rested it on her arm. Not possessively. It was more like he wished to soothe her. His voice and expression grew far-off, searching.

“He broke your heart,” he whispered. “And there is someone you’re trying to protect…” His hand slipped away. He returned to himself. “You’re much stronger with the Force than you know.”

“How’s that?” Sambri felt out of breath.

 _Kalindra,_ she thought. And: _How does he know about Jaren?_

“Your mind is locked tight,” the Knight said. “I can sense your feelings but not their causes.” He shrugged—the barest roll of his shoulder. “Enough of this. I don’t want your memories. I need someone to look after this house. To care for it, and me, on the rare occasions I’m here. It would please me if it were you, but if you’re not interested…”

He turned to go.

“Wait,” Sambri said. 

He glanced back over his shoulder. The corner of his mouth made not-quite-a-smile. 

_I know you_ , he’d said—and it seemed he did. The way he moved spoke of expectations fulfilled.

“The money is here.” He nodded to the top of the dresser, at a black, silken pouch she hadn’t noticed before. “You can count it, if you’d like.” Sambri shook her head. From the window came the sound of rain, the smell of night-flowers opening. 

The Knight unclasped his midnight cloak. His dark eyes gleamed orange in the candlelight.

“Your dress,” he said. 

Sambri nodded and slipped the dress from her shoulders. It fell even as his cloak did, and she felt very soft, more-than-naked.

“You’re beautiful,” the Knight said. “Here. Help me with this.” Obediently, she approached and began to loosen his clothes. The garments were as mysterious as he was, and thick enough to turn a sword: a long wrapping that criss-crossed his shirt, a belt as broad as a woman’s corset. Soon he was bare-chested before her and his skin was very pale and muscled to the bone. She traced a finger along the seam of a faded scar before she realized what she was doing. A muscle flinched and, at his gasp, she felt unexpectedly aroused. Transaction, he’d called this, but suddenly she wanted it. Her desire ran hand in hand with terror as he seized her wrist with his calloused fingers. Slowly, he drew her close against him, looping her arm about his waist as he backed her towards the bed.

“I apologize if this is quick,” he said. His breath came hot and fast in the shell of her ear. He was so monstrously tall her head came only to his breastbone and she shuddered as his hair brushed the tops of her _lekku_. Most men would have been poking and prodding at the head-tails to test the truth of their famed sensitivity, but the Knight slipped his hands low, cupping her against him, pressing gently against her as he lowered her onto the bed. He knelt above her and bent as if to kiss her mouth—but she turned her head and his lips ghosted across her throat. Though he said nothing, she sensed her refusal was understood. A body was one thing. A kiss was another. Any of Inka’s girls would have agreed. She closed her eyes and felt his hands glide smoothly down her body. Then she heard the _swicking_ sound as he drew off his trousers, and felt the thick heat of his sex against her thigh.

He gave a brief hiss of pleasure as he entered her. She wasn’t wet yet—but in a moment he made her so. His thrusts were tight and sharp and aching and made her shudder down to her core. The tension in his shoulders spoke of claiming—of repressed desire and agonizing need. It was this—the sense of _craving_ in him—that brought her to an unlooked-for climax. She came with him as he emptied into her, and they cried out together in the flickering dark.

###

Afterward he lay spent, his head pillowed on her breast, his sweat growing cold beneath her encircling arm.

“Thank you,” he muttered. He tried to kiss her again—muzzily and forgetful--at the corner of her mouth. But she moved her head and he fell asleep. She would do all he wanted, but never that.

###

“She doesn’t _want_ me!”

Now he stands before her, shaking, but not with the chill of the rain. Shutters creak and groan as they stretch in their casements and, distantly, a glass shatters in one of the rooms. This house she’s kept for him seethes and swells—a painful, maddened, maddening sound. Sambri can’t tell if he sees her at all. Perhaps he’d inflict this on whoever was around.

But no. He’s never spoken much with her—hardly asked about this house she’s helped repair and kept ready—but his silence hasn’t been indifferent. She’s sensed a sort of… _satisfaction_ in him. He’s never commented when she’s spoken of her strolls with ZK-7—the spidery little errand droid (Kali calls him “Zeek”) he supplied her with. Likewise he hasn’t spoken when she’s explain the looks she gets in the night market (where everyone seems to know she’s his). 

Her feelings tell her he’s pleased with their arrangement. 

Despite his silence, Sambri senses she’s the only one he confides in.

“She doesn’t want me,” he says again. He peers down at her as if willing her to understand. 

“Who is _she_?” Sambri asks.

“No one,” he says, anguished. “ _Nothing_!” 

Suddenly, he drops to his knees, his dark head pressed against her belly. His arms come around the backs of her legs and his sobs are muffled in the skirts she bought with his money. 

_Gods_ , Sambri realizes. _He’s in_ love.

She tries to reconcile this with what she knows of him, what she’s learned about him since he first took her to bed. He isn’t just the leader of the Knights of Ren. He’s a Jedi, too—or something like it. No one’s really sure about him. His name is a construct—whispered in tandem with "Supreme Leader Snoke.” _That_ name people know like their own, but “Kylo Ren,” the name he calls himself, is mysterious. Certainly, he is some kind of assassin, and yet….

…and yet Sambri has been _curious_. Since their first night she’s been through every room of this house, this sagging relic that somehow belongs to him. He’s spent only a dozen nights with her but she’s spent months and months with him. She’s found a few holovids of a dark-haired little boy with a well-dressed mother and a rakish-looking sire. There’s even one of the boy with a Wookie (of all creatures!)—which makes her think of some stories Mamo told. This house belonged to a Galactic Senator and the woman in the vids seems vaguely familiar.

 _Are_ you _that boy?_ she wonders. She wants to believe it, because the alternative is horrifying: a validation of the eldritch power that is currently squeezing all the air from the room.

“I offered her my hand,” Kylo Ren shudders. “…a way out of all this fighting—of all of it! I would have cut my heart out and put it on a plate and she…she…”

“She refused you,” Sambri says. 

“She did.” He raises his tear-stained face—unaware or uncaring that he’s let down his guard. Sambri is reminded again of his youth. Their _shared_ youth—and their loss of the very same.

“You understand,’” he says, after a moment. “ _He_ left you. I can’t even read his name in your mind.” His grip tightens of a sudden. “Give it to me. Give it to me _now_.”

Sambri gasps. His power fills the room. Dark and seething as his stricken eyes. Only now when it’s too late can she acknowledge that she knew they’d come to this someday. She knows because she’d do the same to him. Solve the puzzle of him by magic—by _Force_ —if she could. Now she feels him inside her, smashing through her mind the way he might smash through one of the damp and rotting walls of this chateau.

He smashes into her and there it is: Ryloth. Jaren before he ran off to die in the Resistance. 

_I love you, Sambri._

_I love you, J._

_I want you. Make me feel it again._

Later, she found his shoes under her bed and wept until she felt something break. Later came the pain and the blood: her weeping combined with a baby’s shrill cry.

Holding her, peering madly into her soul, Kylo Ren groans as he shares her agony. It’s something about the baby. About being lost. His snarling mind falters, enough to spare her a glimpse. Sambri sees the bare floor of some holy place, where he wept, holding his head in his arms. She sees the man and the woman from the holovid, their eyes sad as they draw farther and farther away. She sees a girl, a little younger than Kylo. Pretty and wholesome, shining like gold. He is drawn to this girl like the pull of a magnet, like a planet collapsing into a star. Sambri can almost hear her name. A soft whisper he mouths to himself in the dark…

His grip on her arm jolts her out of it. He’s hurting her, but not on purpose.

“No. Get out of me…Give me your mouth.” His teeth, so white, bared in her face. “Kiss me. Kiss me like you kissed _him_.” His breath brushes her lips. He pulls her close, fingers digging. His touch creeps underneath her _lekku_ and the heat of him burns at the base of her skull. She feels the warmth melt through her head-tails. _Lekku_ are sensitive—but not only to passion. Beyond her own desire she sees his mind:

_Give it to me. Please. Want me. Pretend I’m him_ _…_

How often has she pleaded thus to the ghost of the man she still loves?

She shudders. Then she kisses Kylo Ren as savagely as she knows how. 

When she pulls back, the two of them are bruised and burning.

“I’ll pretend you’re him,” she says, “if you pretend I’m _her_.”

Something hot sparks deep in his eyes. He nods—and gathers her into his arms. And though they are both soon lost with their dream lovers—with Jaren, and the girl with the desert in her eyes—they are also opening to each other, seeing one another as they’ve never let on. Sambri sees herself as Kylo sees her and the vision is shockingly alluring. She is all lush breasts and sad beauty—a mystery he mulls at the corner of his mind. He has thought of her with a fond ache of desire that reminds him of his adolescence. Sambri lets him see how reminds her of Jaren: beautiful and strong and never to be trusted. 

At last, she pushes him back on the bed. Straddles him. Sweeps aside her robe. His hands find her breasts as she claws at his belt and works the tight black leathers down his legs. His cock springs out, hard and straight against his belly, and she puts her mouth on him, takes him deep in her throat. Her desire for him is tangled with lost love: a scalded mingling of grief and desire. She chokes herself on him, tasting his salt, tasting her tears at the back of her throat—and only when he’s close does she let him go and allow herself to be pinned and taken.

_Give it to me. Give it to me…._

His hips set a violent rhythm but his hands caress her _lekku_. He may never have had a Twi’lek girl before, but he seems to have an instinct for where to touch her. He comes with a hard, painful-sounding jerk and she follows a moment later, coaxed gently by his hands. Her body goes liquid with relief and pleasure…

…and only then does she realize how much she’s given away.

There are a few slow moments as they come back to themselves, become aware of the humid room and the dripping rain outside. The afternoon storm thrashes at the windows, breathes a small, hissing draft inside.

 _Kali. He knows I have a daughter._ The Order takes the daughters of people like her.

Kylo Ren rolls off her, sits naked on the edge of the bed, his spine curled, his shoulder slumped, trembling with something he will not share. His mind has closed itself to her. She knows it will not open again.

She holds herself. Cold with his sweat and her fear. Outside, through the storm, the sound of ships come and go. Children on those ships. Force sensitives. Children. 

_Oh Moma. Oh Kali. Oh what have I done…_

“There’s an old ship on the eastern quay.”

His voice comes faintly, like part of the rain. 

“An old spice junker with an old, old crew. The Captain’s name is Marlen Twoomey.”

Sambri sits. He isn’t looking at her. He is watching the water-shadows play on the wall.

“Take your daughter and your mother,” he says. “Tell Marlen…tell him Ben sent you.”

He rises. Stands. Naked and white. A boy with a warrior’s sculpted body. He gropes, unseeing, for his long black clothes and the battered lightsaber in its black-and-silver holster. He didn’t bring the mask this time. Sambri senses that, somehow, he has tired of it.

“My lord,” she ventures. 

“Tell him to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere Han would have died of--…would have been bored to tears in. Tell him if he doesn’t do what you say every spice-runner in the galaxy will know what he did on Canto Bight.”

“My lord, what…?” He’s almost dressed but Sambri feels she should do something—maybe help with his shoes? He seems earnest but what if he changes his mind? She should ingratiate herself, bow, get down on her knees…

But when she tries to help him he holds up a hand he has long since sheathed in its forbidding black glove. He doesn't look at her. His jaw trembles. Not anger. Kali looks that way when she’s getting ready to cry.

Silently, he throws his cape back on. Straps the saber-belt to his hips. Stands, diminished in his stocking feet. 

Sambri retrieves his boots from under the bed. Approaches him, tentative, full of hope. She fears he will rage and take everything back, but when she presents the boots he only holds them against his leg.

“Marlen Toomey?” she asks, to make sure she has it right.

“Loading bay five,” Kylo says. He takes a slow, shuddering breath. When he speaks again his voice is almost warm.

“Sambri,” he says, “don’t wait long. Go as soon as my ship leaves the bay.”

“I will.” Her eyes ache with unshed tears. “ _We_ will.”

“Good,” he says. He turns away.

Sambri has his money. She has her life. Moma and Kali’s lives. A way out, at last. Yet she cannot stop a final question. She knows enough of dangerous games to recognize when one is over.

“Who is Ben?” she asks, as his hand moves the door, in the instant before he vanishes from her life. In time, she will hear him called “Supreme Leader.” She will listen for his rumor from star systems away. She will wonder if he ever found his girl. Why he spared Sambri when he spared so few—not even himself.

He never turns. The large shoulders only pause a moment before his night-dark voice comes wistfully back.

“You know,” he says.

The door closes.

The rain dissolves his bootless tread.

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Trevorrow's un-filmed script for Episode IX sends Rey and Poe to Bonadan, which is described in the screenplay much as I do here. I've also used Trevorrow's version (more or less) of the Knights of Ren, who do far more in his script than pose.


End file.
